Beligerare Phasmus
by L.A.Sedgwick
Summary: An isolated town. A wiccan. A boy. A mystery. And a cursed book. All of this sums up to one word. Trouble.
1. Default Chapter

**Chapter 1: Scholus Brutum**

Austral Heights Higher Scholastic Education Campus. It was your typical outer suburbia, American country high-school. With more emphasis on the generation of ideal conformist individuals (namely strong, dumb and hardworking), then on leaders of tomorrow who will actually lead the people somewhere, not rob them blind. The school is famous for producing average football players. The town of Austral Heights is famous for its ugly, old clock tower, and its slightly pinkish snow.

Austral Heights is situated on a snowy mountain range, bordering America and Canada. With short springs and long winters, there were hardly any settlers willing to live there. That explains why, in the present day, there are still less than nine hundred people living in Austral Heights.

The school. The bell rings. Crowds of casually dressed students amble to their classes. There is a strict dress code enforced by the school admin, "Wear whatever you want." There are students in the halls wearing brightly colored shirts, to half tops; to leather pants, to mid-calf short jeans. There is a noticeable hierarchy among the students. Boys in green and yellow track jumpers look benignly down upon those around them, flirting openly with girls in green and yellow cheerleader attire. Groups of pimpled, glasses wearing geeks huddle close together, hoping for strength in numbers, but scatter like a dandelion when another, higher up on the food chain, comes to 'ask' for something from some unfortunate group member. The junkies hang around near the soda vendors, thoroughly wiped out, even early in the morning, barely moving even when the bell sounds. A small group of young men dressed in baggy labeled sports pants and Nike tank-tops shout rudely to a group of green and gold dressed jocks, starting a small riot in the hallways.

Inside the history classroom, Mr. Claron, dressed in a loose white shirt which didn't do much to hide his protruding beer belly, and pants held up with elastic shoulder straps, head history teacher, as well as disciplinarian addresses his class.

"Good morning class," he spat as the last of his class enters his classroom, "or should I say afternoon?" he asked them sarcastically, tilting his head like a bird; a ferocious half smile, half sneer on his face; his eyes glaring. "Now, this happens again, I will put you all," he stopped and pointed at all the students seated in his classroom, "yes, all of you, into detention, and supervise it myself." With a meaningful gaze at his classroom, he sat on the edge of his desk and picked up a thick text book. Before he could start, a secretary dressed in grey business skirt and coat comes in and whispers something into his ear. Running his hand over his balding scalp, he watches the secretary leave the room.

"Well, class," he said through his teeth, adopting his fierce smile once more, "It seems that you have a new class mate." As he finished his sentence, he turned back to the door expectantly, whereas a teenager, around seventeen, walked slowly into the classroom. He had messy brown hair, a pale complexion and a haggard look. His clothes were all black. His shirt, untucked, was so long it seemed to be flowing like a tunic. His pants were of a hard cloth, like jeans; not tight, nor baggy, just a funny in-between. He wore black boots. Not fashion boots, but good, serviceable boots. He had a black canvas bag slung over his shoulder, not large enough to carry all of his books in, but full nonetheless. He carried another bag in his hand, this one obviously his school bag. His eyes were dark brown. Ordinarily, they would have been nice to look at, but the rings around his eyes detracted greatly from their appeal. He seemed thin, yet wide shouldered. He did not appear to be overly muscular, or muscular at all.

"Well," Mr. Claron muttered unkindly, "Introduce yourself so we can start the goddamn lesson."

The boy looked at Mr. Claron levelly, then turned his gaze to the class. "My name is Karl Jehenstren," he introduced himself in a level, unaccented voice. Quiet, yet penetrating. "I come from out of town. I shall be joining you indefinitely." With that, he walked to the nearest empty desk, which was at the centre right of the class, and dropped his bag next to it, yet not taking off the shoulder bag. He sat down, and waited without expression for the class to begin. With a raised eyebrow, Mr. Claron eyed the new student, then, shrugging, finally started his class.

A few hours later finds Karl in a back corner of the cafeteria, a platter of food before him, yet he only sips on a hot cup of some herbal concoction. Slowly sipping the brew, he eyes the crowd in the cafeteria, his brown eyes alert. At the far side of the room, sits the jocks, making crude and loud jokes, not caring who they offend. A bit closer sits the basketballers, doing much the same as the jocks but in a different lingo. Closer still sits the skaters and the junkies, then the hard rockers and their entourages. Furthest away from the jocks sit the geeks, the dweebs, the lower caste. And furthest still, are the unmentionables. Freaks. Neither geek nor rocker, jock nor skater; they fit into none of the conformist labels, and are therefore termed as something that may not be named.

From this table, a girl stands. The girl is a thin brunette, with wild, wavy hair. She is dressed in earthy greens and browns and wears little jewelry. Her shoes are dutiful leather, unfashionable, inexpensive; operational. Picking up a shoulder bag that gives out a faint click of metal, a slight thud of wood, an inaudible rasp of fabric, she walks over to Karl in an unassuming, neutral manner.

"Hey," was all she said before taking a seat. Karl watched her for a moment, then went back to looking over the throng. Without seeming to mind, the girl dipped her hands into her bag and pulled out a few items, laying them out on the table.

Karl looked momentarily at each of the items. A knife, a candle, incense, a chalice. "Wiccan," he stated, not really a question, but more of an accusation. He snorted slightly.

"You have something against Wicca?" she challenged.

Karl looked her straight in the eyes. "It only has limited results," he said. "I know."

The girl put the items back into her bag, muttering as she did so. "So you used to be Wiccan or something, but now you've found something 'better'," she smirked sarcastically.

Karl looked at her once more, then went back to watching the crowd. "Yes," was all he said.

The girl looked at him for a moment, anger clearly showing on her face, then shrugged. "Marianne Fieldson," she introduced herself neutrally, as if she wasn't even angry before. "What's your name?"

Karl looked at her quizzically for a moment, then put down his mug of herbs. "Karl Jehenstren," he replied. Nodding absentmindedly, Marianne dug once again into her bag, this time pulling out a bulky leather-bound book, with light metal celtic decoration on the covers, and an inscription on the cover. Karl's eyes opened with surprise when he read the inscription. Marianne noticed this.

"You know what it means?" she asked, genuinely interested. "No one, not even the guy who gave me this book, knew what it meant. It uses a weird alphabet, sorta runic or something."

Karl looked at her for a moment, his eyes still wide, then looked away quickly and, picking up his mug, got up and hurriedly pushed his way out of the cafeteria. Just when he neared the door, a green and gold jacketed jock took a step back and ran straight into the rushing Karl. Without stopping to apologize or say a word, Karl kept on, as if he hadn't felt the jarring collision. Not wanting to lose the chance to find out the meaning of the inscription, Marianne follwed Karl, behind a small group of angry jocks.

Karl finally stopped walking by the edge of an old oak tree, muttering curses, holding his head in his hands, occasionally punching the unobtrusive oak tree.

"Hey you," came a voice behind him. Without thinking, Karl turned impulsively, and looked up to see a massive fist closing in on his face.

Karl fell against the tree, his lip bleeding, his expression fierce. The jocks stood around him, laughing nastily. Jerkily getting up, he brushed himself off and, looked straight at the jocks, his face still fierce, tried to talk calmly and evenly.

Marianne watched from a corner, hidden. Close enough to see, yet too far away to hear them talk. She heard the jocks suddenly start laughing, and gasped when they all started to attack Karl mercilessly. She rushed forward to stop them, but halted in her tracks halfway. She didn't really halt, it was more like her feet were bolted to the ground with fifteen inch nails.

Karl stood in the midst of a group of screaming jocks. They were screaming because they were being methodically picked up and thrown by some invisible force. One jock tried running away. He got halfway to Marianne, before he was suddenly tripped over, turned around, then savagely beaten into unconciousness. Another was set upon by a man-thick oak branch. Yet another's head was being bashed into the thick trunk of the oak. Karl watched the gruesome proceedings angrily, then, muttering something and making a small gesture, he turned around and walked into the forest. Looking around her cautiously, Marianne hitched her bag, then hesitantly followed Karl into the forest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Marianne had been following Karl for the better part of a half hour now. She was tired, her feet ached, and she had numerous scratches from sharp twigs and hidden branches. Nonetheless, she followed on relentlessly, determined to get some answers. She walked on for a couple more minutes before she finally realized that she hadn't heard Karl's footsteps for quite some time. Stopping, she looked around. The forest was still, silent. Too silent. Realizing that she might be just a little over her head, she turned around to go back, looking over her shoulder. She didn't realize that she had tripped until after she hit the ground. Before she could get up, she heard a steely rasp, and suddenly a heavy weight was on her back, a hand over her mouth, a knife to her throat, and a mouth next to her ear.

"Why are you following me?" a voice like Karl's whispered into her ear. She tried to turn her head to look at whoever it was who was on top of her, but stopped when the knife pressed closer to her throat, its razor sharp blade drawing a small smear of blood. She froze, afraid to move. Shortly after, the hand removed itself from over her mouth and roughly turned her around. She saw it was Karl, slightly blood splattered, a bruise on his face, his brown eyes boring into her skull and still holding a sharp knife to her throat.

Marianne gulped nervously, a thousand questions screaming in her mind, half desperate thoughts racing around her brain, her adrenaline pumping. Mustering the courage to talk, she managed to mutter one word.

"The inscription?" Karl spat incredulously. "You put my life in danger and almost blow my cover with that book, and you have the nerve to follow me around to where I am most vulnerable with that accursed book with you, and you're asking me for the meaning of that damned inscription?" he hissed, looking for a moment as if he was going to slit her throat, then eventually sheathing the knife in some hidden compartment in his clothes. Muttering angrily, he got up and picked up a long and thick stick, quickly drawing flowing, rune-like markings with a silver inked pen. Marianne sat there, a hand to her neck, feeling the warm wetness of blood slowly seeping out. Karl looked up at her, at her paling complexion, and the fixed bemused expression on her face. Realizing that his knife had bitten deeper then he had expected, he reached into his black canvas shoulder bag and took out a roll of bandage and some herbs. Deftly pulverizing the herbs and spreading them over a length of bandage, he wrapped it around Marianne's neck, then went back to his scribbling. Marianne's vision started to blur. She desperately tried to stay awake, but the encroaching darkness of unconsciousness took its hold, and she was out like a light.

Marianne woke sometime later. She didn't know how long she had been asleep, only that it was now night and that it had been mid-afternoon when she had left the cafeteria. She felt at her neck and found some fresh bandages encircling the length of her neck. Digging her fingers under the top of the bandage, ready to pull it off.

"Don't," she heard a voice say over to her left. Turning her head, she saw Karl sitting in front of a small fire, a straight stick in his hand, bedecked with silvery runes, its edge sharpened to a point.

"Why shouldn't I?" she questioned defiantly, not removing her fingers from the bandage.

"Because I used the wrong knife on you," Karl muttered sheepishly. "I accidentally used a poisoned knife, and that bandage contains the powder that is the antidote," he explained earnestly. "If you don't have a steady supply of the antidote, the poison will kill you almost instantly." Finishing his explanation, he turned to his left and picked up a steaming mug and a plate, both of which he offered her silently. Cautiously moving closer to him, she took the mug and set it down, then took the plate. It smelt of rabbit. It was a simple stew with pieces of dried bread thrown in for taste. Not waiting for her to dig in, Karl picked up another plate and started to eat some stew himself. They both sat and ate in silence for a while, neither of them interested in engaging conversation. Marianne looked around her surroundings. The camp was basically a fireplace with logs for benches, then slightly away from the fire, were more logs, in a hexagonal shape, all with silvery writing on them. At the edge of the firelight, stood four tall thick sticks, about the width of a man's arm. These too were bedecked with runes. These sticks stood upright, one in each of the four cardinal directions, North, South, East and West. Finally, Karl broke the silence.

"'To wield the power of the damned, you must suffer first as the damned do, then suffer as they shall.'"

"What?" asked Marianne bemusedly.

"It's the meaning of the inscription on that book of yours," Karl answered. Marianne still looked like she hadn't a clue what he was saying. "To really understand what it means, you have to go back around two centuries years ago, back to the fall of Rome and the spread of Christianity."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

These were dark times. Whole nations collapsed in upon themselves due to infighting, greed, corruption and malice. But our story focuses on the fields of old England. Kings and princes, warlords and wizards fought for supremacy, razing the country side, raping and killing on their own personal road to greatness. A group of great scholars met and took over a small village, far away from the hottest fighting; determined to end the self destruction of their land. For years they tried to master a force, any force, capable of defeating the ravenous armies of the many warlords. Naturally, they found many secrets, and their number grew smaller as smaller groups broke away, with firm belief that these new found secrets of nature and life would bring around the downfall of the aggressors. And, when confronted with the armies of the warlords, those secrets wrought great destruction and fear, but, ultimately, did not save those brave scholars from an untimely death from the warlords' forces. The number scholars started to dwindle, as they either died out or ran away in fear of their lives. Four years had barely passed when the army of a certain Hersmond Slewsgate, a lesser warlord, stood at the gates of the little village, in hopes of subjugating the few sages left to create weapons for his rise to power. Slewsgate, in his arrogance, rode into the village himself, with his elite guard and most trusted wizards. Outside, his army stood by restlessly, waiting to hear the screams of the helpless; the laughter of the wicked. And they heard screams, but no laughter, no flames of victory, no conquerous flag raised over the defenseless village. Instead, all they saw was their lord atop his horse, fleeing wild-eyed from the quiet village, screaming insanely. Waiting for the orders that would never come, the soldiers turned to their commanding officers in fear, waiting to be given some coherent order. Before anything could be said, before the insane warlord had even fled the battlefield, the first rows of soldiers were cut to shreds by invisible swords. Seconds later, the second rows ripped apart by powerful, malicious hands. An enormous massacre of men took place on that field, but only those wearing the jerkins of the warlord were killed. The killers themselves were not even seen.

From the gates of the village stood two groups of scholars. The first, dressed in scholarly robes of all shades and hues, watched on, horrified. The second, dressed in shabby black robes stood perspiring, their eyes closed, chanting frantically to control whatever magic they were casting. At the forefront of this second group stood a tall man, his eyes wide open, his milky white pupils staring at nothing, his face haggard, his mouth a thin white line. This man is the most important man at this point in history, for it was he who discovered the lost secret which brought so much destruction to the invaders.

Years ago, he was blinded, trying to protect his family from a band of pillaging deserters. He failed, and his family was slaughtered in front of him, before his eyesight was taken away from him. But to top it all off, the marauders decided to gut him like a pig and leave him for dead. Instead of dying and joining his family, he somehow survived, and was rescued by a traveling healer, on his way to the scholar's village. Blind and helpless, the healer knew that he would not live for long, and took the man with him. For years, the blind man listened to the talk of the various scholars, the debates, the theories. It was not until a week before the invaders arrived did he discover a force, a power so destructive, that it would thrive on the death of those around it. In truth, the secrets that came before this failed because they were meant to preserve life. The secret he discovered was meant to destroy life, and the dead were its fuel. For this secret was the raising of the spirits of the dead, the harnessing of these spirits, then the unleashing of a vengeful force intent on the destruction of all that lived.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The debates between the headmasters lasted for weeks. Our master would come out of those meetings looking more and haggard, one hand on brother's shoulder to lead him safely, the other tiredly massaging his brow. "Don't worry master," I would sometimes hear brother say, "they will see that it is best, eventually". I never really understood it when I heard master whisper "I hope they don't, my pupil, I hope to god they don't."

I was only 13 at the time, just coming into my manhood. I had no outstanding features or qualities; and though I lived in a village full of sorcerers and sages, I had no innate mystical powers of my own. My brother, on the other hand, was adept at nearly every magic he was taught. We were orphans, our parents had either left us or died, we never bothered to ask anyone; they all had their own problems. My name was Carl (Marianne raised her eyebrows, and started to interrupt Karl's narrative, but a stern glance from the narrator told her that he was not going to be interrupted), but my brother would call me "Little Caesar", a name so full of sarcasm he had but to open his mouth with the intention of saying it to anger me. My brother and I were never really close during those years just before the discovery of the resurrection magic, and it got worse afterwards. I guess to him, I was just a weight. In retrospect, I guess that's what all the others thought of me. The only one who ever treated me nicely was the blind master, but all I could do for him were petty chores. Every day I felt ever more out of place, every glance from any one else in the village, no matter how short or mundane, made me feel inferior. Finally, when the debates were at their hottest, and everyone's nerves were taught, I quietly left, with nothing but a dirk, a little food, and the clothes on my back.

I traveled around for almost a year before I returned to the village. In those 10 or 11 months, I had struggled to become something, anything, to prove to myself that I was more than a chore-boy. I had tried my hand at becoming a warrior, all I was left with was a basic knowledge of how to fight and a bruised ego. I tried becoming a merchant, a thug, an explorer, a thief; but failed in all those as well. The only thing I got for my effort was trouble, and the only useful skill I developed was a knack of surviving it. I learned how to live off the land, but quickly fell ill after only a few nights in the wild, so I had to spend twice as much time in the city, stealing medicines and food, as I could in the wilderness.

When I returned to the village, nearly a year older, none the wiser, stronger, defter or richer; I found that everything had changed. The village had become a fortress, with black armored troops standing guard at the impressive metal gates. The village had been transformed from an idyllic timber and thatch haven into an iron and stone monstrosity! Inside the village itself, the humble people who had resided there had been replaced with busy, warlike Samaritans; even the women wore black clothes, carried knives on their belts, and worked with a grim sort of determination at whatever it was they did at the time.

I had some trouble assuring the guards to let me through the gates, they were under orders to watch for spies, they told me afterwards, though they still regarded me with a look of suspicion. I could blame them, a year of stealing to survive had changed the way I looked, as well as how others looked at me. I didn't look like a prince, that was for sure. I was instructed to proceed straight to the council chamber, and was provided an armed escort, though I doubt it was for my own safety. And even though I was born and raised in that village (Karl chuckled wryly at this point), even though I was under an armed guard, every one in the village would stop what they were doing and put their hands to their weapons as I passed by, and watched me with such looks of paranoia that I couldn't decide to laugh or cry. I had just entered manhood, I was not even 14 yet!, and everyone looked at me like I was some sort of monster!

My thoughts so troubled me that I didn't even notice when I had arrived at the chamber. I didn't hear one of the guards tell me to disarm; I just stared at the council door, my thoughts turned inwards. But my reverie was broken quite quickly when the guards all leveled their spears at me and ordered me once again to disarm. I did what I was told in fear, everything about my home scared me now, and placed all my weapons on a small table near the door, the same knife I had when I had left the village, and a slightly larger one, a hunter's knife I had found in an abandoned shack.

With their spears still leveled at me, the guards ushered me inside. The first thing I saw was my brother sitting on a raised dais, on what frighteningly looked very much like a throne. He was bone thin and haggard, his eyes almost popping out of his skull. He looked like a court jester in his overlarge and dirt stained ermine robes, and looked like a mere fool with a weighty gold crown atop his brow. He looked so weak, that it seemed his neck would break at any moment from the weight of his hideously garish crown. But the guards shied back nonetheless, fear painting their faces. At first I couldn't understand why they were so afraid of him, looking like that. But even as the question crossed my mind, I felt invisible fingers clawing at my flesh from all sides. In a way that astonished me at the time, I knew exactly what was clawing softly at me; where they stood; I could almost see the dim shapes. I realized with dread that the dead filled the room. My brother slowly and laboriously turned his eyes toward me, and looked at me for almost a whole minute before instructing me to speak

"Do you not recognize me, my brother?" I asked in astonishment.

After staring blankly at me for a few seconds, all he said was, "Oh, its you," before turning his head again and making a slight shooing motion in my direction. The guards dragged me roughly through the door, then hesitantly gave back my weapons before telling me that the king (Karl's nostrils flared as he said the word with spiteful sarcasm) was busy planning his expansion and that I had no permission to be in the village, and, though I said I came from here, they told me to go back to whence I came. As I was pushed a poked roughly through town once again, going back the way I came, a woman, dressed completely in black robes, complete with a black hood, stood in the middle of our path. The soldiers hesitated, though she had no weapons on her, or any noticeable marks of strength. Nonetheless, a soldier in front stepped forward and asked insolently, if somewhat hesitantly, why she blocked their path. The woman looked at him with disdain, and without speaking, pointed at me. The soldier looked at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, then looked about to take a stand when she brought both her hands together and started to chant silently. The soldier immediately jumped aside, and the others quickly followed suit, clearing the street and leaving my completely unattended. As soon as the soldiers were gone, the woman stopped her silent chanting and smiled at me, then turned and beckoned to me to follow her as she walked into a narrow side street. Not knowing what else to do, I followed, and there well and truly starts my path of damnation.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Karl watched the mixed emotions flashing across Marianne's face. _To heck with this, why don't I just ditch her?_ He thought to himself, but his eyes touched on the leather bound book in her arms, and he let out a gloomy sigh. He knew she wasn't going to be able to survive by herself as long as that was in her possession, and stealing it from her would be hard; killing her and taking the book out of the question.

"It might help if I clarify some things for you before I go, don't you agree?" he asked quietly with a slight smile. Marianne just nodded, not quite knowing what else to do.

"First of all, when I say 'I' in this, it's not really me," Karl explained. Marianne's face screwed up in confusion. "Remember the inscription on the book?" Karl asked her, but went on without waiting for a reply, "'_Du feamt dra bufan uv dra tyshat, oui sicd civvan vencd yc dra tyshat tu, drah civvan yc drao crym_m.' 'To wield the power of the damned, you must suffer first as the damned do, then suffer as they shall'", quoted Karl, then went into a somber silence, absentmindedly etching runes into the dirt in front of him with a stick. "When you take up this power," he continued suddenly, without looking up, "you take on the memories of past lives; not your own, but rather parallels in the space- time continuum," Karl looked up at Marianne with sad eyes, "Not all the memories are pleasant ones," he whispered, "But all of them are important lessons," he continued on, "You don't always get the memories of someone with the same name or sex, its based on some sort of spiritual parallel that no one has been able to work out. Most of my other memories are like that, but the one I'm telling you about is the most important. It documents the two deadliest wars using necromancy. The first completed during Carl's lifetime, the second, also started during Carl's lifetime, but it never ended," Karl gestured around the fire place, at the rune-bedecked sticks and logs, then at the night, "But I'll go into that another time. What's most important is the first war, and it's relevance to the book."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

I followed the blacked robed woman down the narrow street, up a small hill, into a tower and up a winding staircase. Finally we reached an old, musty smelling oak door at the top of the tower. She opened the door and beckoned me inside. My head was racing; I didn't know who she was, what she wanted of me; everything that was familiar and beautiful about my village was gone and was replaced by a frightening grimness. The ghosts in the chamber, the strange chanting of the woman, the looks of fear on the faces of the guards; I was so numb with confusion, that I plodded in after her, like a mindless walking corpse. Oh, how that description seemed so befitting in the years to come!

Inside, the room was dark, with thick curtains over the closed windows. The air was thick with dust, with an almost tangible feeling of sadness in the air. The room itself was just that, a room, with a small table next to an only slightly larger bed in one corner. The only other piece of furniture was a broken chair, its pieces lay scattered in a small radius, the dust already seemed to have collect thickly on their surfaces.

The woman walked softly towards the bed, I followed, equally quiet, and stood beside her. She reached a hand out and patted a blanket covered shape lying on the bed. With a soft rustle, the shape turned towards us.

"Good afternoon, master," I heard my self say, as if from a great distance.

"Good afternoon, Carl," I heard him reply, but his voice seemed like thunder that echoed in my skull. I watched in amazement as his lips would scarcely move, and thunder would shatter my thoughts with his words echoing endlessly in my mind. He quickly told me of what happened in the short time that I was away. The village council had authorized the use of necromancy due to the threat of attack from several powerful warlords. Within months, my master had taught a number of strong wizards to control the magic, who, in turn, taught other wizards, all for the purpose of defending the village, and, ultimately, bringing the country out of chaos. But the balance was upset when the power of the magic started to corrupt some of the more powerful wizards; among them; my brother. The pupil of one of my masters original disciples, he betrayed and murdered his master, under the pretense that he was working for one of the warlords. My brother's reputation as a diligent and trustworthy student made all the other masters accept his story, even though the master he killed was one of the foremost on the village council. My master had just finished with a disciple at the time, and was the only master free. My brother, needing a teacher, did not even have to ask, but was placed under the tutelage of my master, which was what he wanted in the first place. As time went by, my brother grew stronger and stronger, and it became ever more apparent that his ambitions lay beyond the village walls. Realizing too late that they had created a monster, the village elders tried to stop my brother; my brother, prepared for this, met them with a small army of dead that he had acquired. Not only did he assault the village with invisible souls, he also brought with him the decaying bodies of the dead, nameless monsters half-human half-beast, skeletons held together with invisible tendons; all he used to ravish the town. After his first attack, he called out to the villagers to prostrate them-selves if they wanted to be spared. Some obeyed and were spared others ran in panic, but, perhaps needlessly, my brother leveled the town, and in the space of a few months, built it anew; except, this time, not as a peaceful village, but a fortress.

I was appalled by what I heard, by the sheer audacity of it all, but my master had not yet finished speaking. He told me that some villagers had escaped, along with some of his loyal disciples; he told me that they were trying to take the village back or at least save him. My master told me to seek them out and tell them not to attempt anything foolish like that, to instead run away and build up their forces. My mind was still reeling; I nodded mutely. My master reached behind his pillow and took out a leather bound book, thrusting it into my numb fingers. "Go," he said, "lead them away from this accursed place. Nothing good will come from confronting him now." Outside, I could hear the rattle of armor, officers barking orders, and the soft wail of the wind. The woman turned at me, mouthed something vaguely apologetical, then started her silent chant; the next thing I knew, I was rolling down a hill, the tower growing smaller as I rolled away, the walls of my village following suite.

I eventually stopped rolling, but my mind still reeled, whether from the shocks from coming home, or from the concussion I sustained from the fall, I never found out. Everything went black.


End file.
